A joint media project of the global news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) and the lay Buddhist network Soka Gakkai International (SGI) aimed to promote a vision of global citizenship which has the potentiality to confront the global challenges calling for global solutions, by providing in-depth news and analyses from around the world.

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) - The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) are determined to undertake necessary steps to make “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”, the theme of the International Women’s Day 2016, a reality. [P41] JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF

QUITO (IDN) - Universal or global citizenship is, according to the Dictionary of Humanitarian Action a principle, category or condition thanks to which anyone in any part of the world may be recognised as a subject with rights.

It’s an established and accepted concept, at least in an international sphere, which is directly linked to the universality of Human Rights. The concept of Universal citizenship fundamentally means that human rights are not related to which particular state an individual may come from and therefore must be protected and respected anywhere a person may find themselves. [P40] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF | SPANISH

NEW YORK (IDN | INPS) - North Korea's nuclear ambition has not been checked effectively even though there were four resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. And North Korea's alleged hydrogen bomb test and a successive rocket launch early February culminated their die-hard ambition to have a substantial nuclear capability together with delivery means.

PARIS (IDN) - While the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has signed an agreement with the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) to measure global citizenship and sustainable development education, the persistent marginalization of mother languages worldwide is threatening Goal 4 of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development. [P38] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF

TOKYO (IDN) - Religious identity, which in a broader context is perceived as belonging to a certain faith, is a topic of heated debate these days, mainly because a religious sense of belonging is directed toward achieving a certain goal by inflicting harm on others. The ongoing debate has been intensified in recent years with the concept of a clash of civilizations winning support among a group of Western academics and intellectuals. [P37] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF

SINGAPORE (IDN) - Government statistics show that in this affluent Southeast Asian nation, one in three workers are migrants. They build the modern infrastructure, clean the buildings, cook and serve in restaurants, look after the children and elderly at home, while often being paid very poorly and treated shabbily and looked at suspiciously by the locals. [P36] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF

The establishment of the Panel, backed by the United Kingdom, the World Bank Group and UN Women, was proclaimed in Davos, Switzerland, the venue of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), on January 21. [P35] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF

“The ISIS’ allure is that it is fighting these Arab tyrants across the region, even as it fulfils the longing of its adherents to participate in a cause that is founded on their own history and traditions”

Last year, as he addressed the congregation from the pulpit of the mosque in Mosul, the self-styled caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi invited all Muslims to migrate to the Islamic State “because hijra to the land of Islam is obligatory”. Read in Japanese

MUMBAI (IDN) - As the international community starts to implement the UN Agenda 2030 for sustainable development, funds from countries that are not members of the Paris-based 29-nation Development Assistance Committee (DAC) have “an increasingly important role in financing development co-operation”, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). [P34] ARABIC | ITALIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF | NORWEGIAN | PERSIAN | PORTUGUESE | SPANISHTURKISH | URDU

CANBERRA, Australia (IPS) - Women leaders in the Pacific Islands have acclaimed the agreement on reducing global warming achieved at the United Nations (COP21) Climate Change conference in Paris as an unprecedented moment of world solidarity on an issue which has been marked to date by division between the developing and industrialized world. But for Pacific small island developing states, which name climate change as the single greatest threat to their survival, it will only be a success if inspirational words are followed by real action. [P33] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF | SPANISH

News media and journalists play a crucial role in creating conditions conducive to fostering global citizenship. With this in view, a UNESCO approved and funded an event on December 14-15 in Bangkok in which a group of Asian scholars and media practitioners participated. They examined how the traditional Asian way of communication could be adopted to train 21st century journalists to create a media that would promote harmony rather than conflict and thus help foster global citizenship. [P32] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF | NORWEGIAN

Why choose Fostering for Global Citizenship

This website is part of a joint media project of the global news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) and the lay Buddhist network Soka Gakkai International (SGI) aimed to promote a vision of global citizenship to confront the global challenges calling for global solutions, by providing in-depth news and analyses from around the world. >>>read more>>>

CAIRO (IDN) - One does need to think back half a century ago, to remember how much harmony and peaceful coexistence reigned in Arab countries between Muslims, Christians and Jewish. Nor does one need to recall how hundreds of Muslims gathered to protect Christians praying in their churches in Egypt during and after the 2011 popular upraising. Or how organised groups of Copts acted as a human shield to save Muslims praying in Cairo's Tahrir Square from extremists' attacks during the successive waves of popular protests.[P] PERSIAN (FARSI) | JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - The future of religion in U.S. politics lies not with conservatives but rather with religious progressives, social scientists here are suggesting, with a faith-based movement potentially able to provide momentum to a new movement for social justice.

According to a new report from the Brookings Institute, a think tank here, the current religious social justice movement can be compared to the period of civil rights activism in the mid-20th century. [P] JAPANESE TEXT VERSIONPDF | SPANISH